5 research outputs found

    Speckle Reduction and Contrast Enhancement of Echocardiograms via Multiscale Nonlinear Processing

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    This paper presents an algorithm for speckle reduction and contrast enhancement of echocardiographic images. Within a framework of multiscale wavelet analysis, the authors apply wavelet shrinkage techniques to eliminate noise while preserving the sharpness of salient features. In addition, nonlinear processing of feature energy is carried out to enhance contrast within local structures and along object boundaries. The authors show that the algorithm is capable of not only reducing speckle, but also enhancing features of diagnostic importance, such as myocardial walls in two-dimensional echocardiograms obtained from the parasternal short-axis view. Shrinkage of wavelet coefficients via soft thresholding within finer levels of scale is carried out on coefficients of logarithmically transformed echocardiograms. Enhancement of echocardiographic features is accomplished via nonlinear stretching followed by hard thresholding of wavelet coefficients within selected (midrange) spatial-frequency levels of analysis. The authors formulate the denoising and enhancement problem, introduce a class of dyadic wavelets, and describe their implementation of a dyadic wavelet transform. Their approach for speckle reduction and contrast enhancement was shown to be less affected by pseudo-Gibbs phenomena. The authors show experimentally that this technique produced superior results both qualitatively and quantitatively when compared to results obtained from existing denoising methods alone. A study using a database of clinical echocardiographic images suggests that such denoising and enhancement may improve the overall consistency of expert observers to manually defined borders

    Advancements and Breakthroughs in Ultrasound Imaging

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    Ultrasonic imaging is a powerful diagnostic tool available to medical practitioners, engineers and researchers today. Due to the relative safety, and the non-invasive nature, ultrasonic imaging has become one of the most rapidly advancing technologies. These rapid advances are directly related to the parallel advancements in electronics, computing, and transducer technology together with sophisticated signal processing techniques. This book focuses on state of the art developments in ultrasonic imaging applications and underlying technologies presented by leading practitioners and researchers from many parts of the world

    Homomorphic Wavelet Shrinkage and Feature Emphasis for Speckle Reduction and Enhancement of Echocardiographic Images

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    An approach for speckle reduction and feature enhancement under a framework of multiscale wavelet analysis is presented. The advantages of both soft thresholding and hard thresholding wavelet shrinkage techniques are utilized to eliminate noise and preserve the sharpness of salient features. We integrate a method of wavelet shrinkage with nonlinear processing to enhance contrast within structures and along object boundaries. Feature restoration and enhancement are accomplished by modifying the gain of a signal's variational energy. In this study, we focus on multiplicative noise, such as speckle noise. We show that this algorithm is capable of enhancing features of interest, such as endocardial and epicardial boundaries in 2-D short-axis echocardiograms while at the same time reducing speckle. Speckle is modeled as multiplicative noise, and approximated by additive stationary Gaussian white noise on a logarithmic scale. In our algorithm, shrinkage of wavelet coefficients via soft thres..
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